Archive for the ‘Indulgences’ Category
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Shimp and Crawfish Nestled in Avocado - Asparagus Flanks Each Side
Shimp and Crawfish Nestled in Avocado - Asparagus Flanks Each Side
I am so happy that the warmer weather is here, and salads are the way to go. Composed salads made by stuffing a fruit or vegetable are a favorite in our house. I found crayfish at the store, and bought some shrimp to go with it. Since we usually eat seafood on Fridays, using the shrimp and crayfish to stuff an avocado seemed like a perfect idea. Spane and I also love asparagus, which looks lovely on a plate. It is also the year that Haas avocados are plentiful.
Avocados produce fruit prolifically every two years, that’s why they are expensive one year, and really cheap the next. Did you know that all commercial, fruit-bearing Hass avocado trees have been grown from grafted seedlings propagated from a single tree? The tree was grown from a seed bought by Rudolph Hass in 1926 from A. R. Rideout of Whittier, California. The mother tree stood for many years in front of a residence in La Habra Heights. The tree died when it was 76 years old and was cut down on 11 September 2002 after a ten-year fight with root rot. Two plaques by the private residence at 426 West Road mark the spot where it grew. Because of the avocado, just about any food with California in the name has avocados. I love ‘em.
Posted in Friday Food, Indulgences, Make Ahead, Pescatarian, Salads, Sauces, Spring, Summer | 
Tags: Angostura bitters, asparagus, Avocado, Avocado oil, Blue Cheese, crayfish. shrimp, lemon juice, olive oil | 
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Teacher's Garden Cake
Teacher's Garden Cake
The PTA at John Muir Elementary School puts on a staff luncheon every year. Parents are asked to bring in their best dish. Our teachers and staff are very lucky, as a lot of our parents are very good cooks. This year, in fact, the recipes are going to be collected and the PTA is publishing a cookbook. The luncheon was going to take place in the newly planted Teachers’ Garden. I decided to make a cake and decorate it as a garden.
The cake looked lovely tilted up on the dessert station. In fact, it looked so lovely, and so real, that no one ate it. Some guests thought it was too pretty to cut, a few thought it was art, and a few didn’t think it was really edible. I wound up taking it home and will share it with family and friends.
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Spane wearing a "hat" given by Chef Farion
Spane wearing a "hat" given by Chef Farion
I was so looking forward to putting my corned beef on the Weber, but I got rained out. It didn’t turn out a bad dinner, though. I used the baby Nesco, and that brisket turned out just fine.
Snake Pie
For the past few St. Patrick’s Days, it has been a lovely, warm and sunny day, perfect for firing up the Weber and putting a corned beef brisket on it. No such luck today, but, no problem, there’s still the baby Nesco.
: Barbecue Corned Beef
Ingredients
- 1 corned beef brisket
- 1 whole onion
- Barbecue sauce
Instructions
- Remove the corned beef from its package. Save the spice package for something else.
- Wash the brisket well in cold water.
- Fill a large stock pot with water. Cut the onion in half.
- Put the brisket and onion in the water.
- Heat on medium heat and cook for two hours or until the brisket is tender.
- Remove the brisket from the water and pat dry. Let the brisket cool in the refrigerator.
- Start your barbecue up and prepare it for indirect cooking.
- If your sauce is not too sweet, you may put the sauce on before putting the meat on the barbecue.
- Put the meat on the grill using indirect heat. Roast on slow heat for two hours, basting occasionally, and checking that the coals are still hot.
- If your sauce is sweet, wait until the last fifteen minutes before putting it on.
Variations
If you do not have a barbecue, or are rained out, you can put the meat in a slow oven or in a small Nesco.
Preparation time: 2 hour(s)
Cooking time: 2 hour(s)
Diet tags: High protein
Number of servings (yield): 8
Culinary tradition: USA (Southern)
My rating
Copyright © The Good Plate.
Recipe by Adrienne Boswell.
Microformatting by hRecipe.
: Snake and Shamrock Pie
Ingredients
- 1 double pie crust
- Mince Meat Pie filling
- 1 egg
- Water
- Green sugar crystals
- Shamrock cookie cutter
- 4 black sesame seeds
Instructions
- Put the first pie crust in the pie pan.
- Fill the pie with the filling.
- Cut shamrocks out of the second crust and place on the top of the pie.
- Roll the remaining dough into a very long, thin rope.
- Mix the egg with some water to make an egg wash.
- Use a pastry brush or paint brush and brush the crust of the pie with the egg wash.
- Take the rope and place it on top of the crust, securing it as you go, leaving a small bit without any of the rope.
- Form one end of the rope into the head of the snake. Use a toothpick to make eye sockets and place two sesame seeds into each eye socket.
- Form the other end into the tail.
- Use a fork to make the diamond shape on the snake’s skin.
- Using the pastry brush, brush the entire snake and all the shamrocks with the egg wash.
- Sprinkle the green sugar all over the shamrocks and snake.
- Cut some foil the circumference of the pie, and put it over the snake part only.
- Preheat the oven to 400.
- Put the pie in the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the shamrocks have started to just brown.
- Remove the foil from the snake and bake for another 5 minutes or until the snake has also browned.
- Remove from the oven. Serve warm with hard sauce.
Variations
If you do not like Mince Meat, you could use another fruit filling that would do well with a lattice pie.
Preparation time: 30 minute(s)
Cooking time: 15 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 8
Culinary tradition: Irish
My rating
Copyright © The Good Plate.
Recipe by Adrienne Boswell.
Microformatting by hRecipe.
Posted in Desserts, Evening, Holidays, Spring, St. Patrick's Day, The Nesco, The Weber! |
Tags: barbecue sauce, colored sugar, corned beef, mincemeat, pie dough |
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Kiwi Lime Cupcakes
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Kiwi Lime Cupcakes
On one of my recent sojourns to the local grocery store, I found dried kiwi fruit. I immediately thought they would make a great decoration for St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes. When I brought Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries for my son’s third grade class field trip, one of the girls requested I make cupcakes the next time I brought a treat for the class. So, I’m making mini lime cupcakes with kiwi for Friday since St. Patrick’s day is on Saturday.
I had planned on making these Thursday evening, but decided to do them this morning. Why? Well, let me first say that I love my son’s curiosity and inventiveness. Yesterday, he was tinkering with the alarm clock and mistakenly set the clock ahead four hours. When I got up at what I thought was seven o’clock and drank coffee, it was not until I looked at the cable box that I realized it was only three o’clock. Since I had already had a half a cup of coffee, it was too late to try to go back to sleep, so I’m making cupcakes.
Posted in Cakes, Desserts, Frosting, Fruit, Indulgences, Kids, Spring, St. Patrick's Day |
Tags: butter, cream cheese, Dried Kiwi, Eggs, Lime juice, Lime zest, powdered sugar, vanilla extract |
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Banana Bread
Spane and I like bananas, and we especially like them when they are just ripe, are firm and might have a little green still on them. I even have a banana slicing tool from Chef’n which makes slicing them a snap. Still, it’s hard for us to get through a small bunch of bananas without one or two going brown. Sure enough, one had gone brown, and knew that it was destined for banana bread.
Why do I call it Second Chance Banana Bread? Well, because it’s a second chance for the banana itself, and because the night Spane and I made it, I was very tired and fell asleep waiting for it to finish baking. When I woke up the house smelled of burnt sugar. The whole loaf was black on top. A little bit in the center had not burned, and we ate that. It was so good, Maria gave me three bananas she had that had also gone brown, so I could make a second loaf – and not burn it.
Posted in Cakes, Desserts, Fruit, Indulgences, Left Overs |
Tags: Bananas, cream cheese |
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Cream Cheese Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
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Cream Cheese Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
The other day, when I was perusing Pinterest, I came across something that looked fabulous. It was strawberries stuffed with cream cheese, and it was called Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries. I pinned it, and decided it would make a nice treat for the kids in Spane’s class going to the Planetarium field trip. Last year, I made White Chocolate Rum Raisin Cookies for Mrs. Mary’s class when we went to The Natural Science Museum.
I lucked out, and strawberries were Buy One box, Get One Free. There are 24 kids in Spane’s class, plus the teacher, and possibly one or two more parents who, like me, volunteered to go on the trip to help with the children. There were enough strawberries, with a few extra for the house.
I decided to change the original recipe a little and dip the strawberries in chocolate. All the recipes on the Internet tell you to add shortening to the chocolate to temper it. I don’t like shortening, and I knew that I had dipped strawberries before without it. Of course, looking in The Joy of Cooking, I found that I didn’t need shortening at all, just a candy thermometer, that I have a nice glass one with a clip. There are instructions later in this post about how to do this.
Posted in Appetizers, Candy, Desserts, Fruit, Gifts, Holidays, Indulgences, Kids, Make Ahead, Methods, Spring, Valentines Day |
Tags: chocolate chips, cream cheese, Strawberries |
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